Customer Reviews

Belkin Soho F1DS104L VGA and USB 4 Port In/Out KVM Switch (Black)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It seems like a very adequate KVM switch. There is no lag between PC switching that others have complained about with other USB KVMs. One annoying thing that it does is beep everytime you switch PCs. Other Belkin KVMs have firmware updates that turn off the beep, but this one is too new to have any updates yet. I talked to Belkin tech support and they are reporting it, so hopefully a firmware update will allow you to toggle it off. Pretty stupid that they added it to other KVMs and not this one... Other than that, it's just large. They made the buttons huge and it makes the whole thing about 13 inches long.

Pros
-audio and microphone switching
-can switch KVM and audio independently (work on one PC while listening to music from another)
-4 good quality (color coded) cables included
-very little lag-time between switching
Cons
-Annoying beep when switching
-large footprint

***UPDATE*** - I came across a solution to the annoying beep/chirp. The hotkey sequence scrlk+scrlk+B toggles the beep. Funny that Belkin Tech support couldn't provide this solution and it is not in the manual anywhere.

Other than that, I've had this KVM for about 6 months with hardly any problems. Every now and again it will lose the connections for the mouse and keyboard, but bouncing power to the KVM for a second seems to fix it. It has probably only happened 3 or 4 times in 6 months. I'm happy with it.

This KVM does what it promises - makes it easy to use several computers with a single monitor, keyboard, and mouse. It's the best-looking KVM I've seen. Most are designed by engineers - big boxes that look pretty ugly on your desk. This one has a nice interface, with color-coded cables, and unlike many others, this KVM comes with all the cables you need. It's a five-star item.

UNTIL YOU LOSE POWER OR UNPLUG IT

When the power goes out or you unplug it, it has a hell of a time getting back on track. It gets very confused and sends wrong signals to your computer, especially when using key-combinations. Keys will come across as other keys, when holding down a key it will sometimes go dead, the mouse will skip around, and for most purposes, it makes your computers very difficult to use until it is corrected. Here's what it takes to correct it:

1) Unplug the power and all USB cables from the KVM. Wait a few minutes
2) Turn off all the computers attached to it.
3) Plug in the KVM's power, then the USB for the keyboard, mouse, and ONLY ONE computer attached to it. Wait a few minutes.
4) Set the KVM to that computer.
5) Boot up the one attached computer.
6) Test your key combinations and mouse clicks. If it doesn't work, return to step one. If it does, add each other computer one by one.

This can take 30-45 minutes and is very frustrating, especially if your power goes down frequently like it does here in Atlanta. We lost power three times yesterday and two today, so I've wasted hours trying to get this KVM back in working order.

I purchased this switch to accommodate my Windows PC's and my Mac mini. Works great. I love the fact that the video and audio are controlled by separate button so if I am listening to music on one computer and need to switch to another I can still hear the music.

Downside is that the switch is very large, and very rarely the mouse and keyboard freeze, but I just unplug the power from the switch and plug it back in and the mouse and keyboard start to work again. I am not sure why it happens, but it has happened two or three times in the 4 months I have had it.

Over all I would recommend this Switch

This switch was a little higher than the price range I had intended to pay, but I am very satisfied with the switch and its KVM plus audio capabilities.
Cables for 4 computers are included. They are plenty long for my installation (some cheaper cables are sometimes shorter) and are color coded to match the selection buttons on the front of the unit.
A great feature is that the audio connections can be selected separately from the computer (keyboard, video, mouse) connections. So, you can be using one of the connected computers while listening to audio from a different computer.
I also like that it has an external power supply and is a USB hub with 2 additional USB ports.
My only complaint is that the case is not very deep (only about 5 inches) compared with its 13-inch width. Smaller is usually better with electronics, but in this case I would have preferred something a little deeper so that I could set something else from my desk (e.g., external hard drives, speakers, phone) on top of it.

I tried a couple different KVMs before this one, trying to stay in the $80 range. One was DOA, the other was the Belkin Flip, which would have been fine if it had allowed the monitor to pass along it's profile to the computer. Returned that and purchased the 4-port SOHO. Very easy to install and use. I've only had it about a month, but so far it has worked with every computer, monitor, keyboard and mouse I have tried. Easy to switch between computers, and computers can be hotswapped as needed. The price is a little higher than some of the cheaper KVMs, but it's well worth the investment.

I have the DVI model at work and it is excellent. Be advise. The one on sale here is the VGA model NOT the DVI.

Great KVM switch. It does have an annoying beep when you switch, but it works quite well otherwise. My G15 keyboard is not recognized as such anymore when it is plugged in via this KVM, that's too bad. It's possible to work around this problem by plugging the keyboard to a USB hub port (on the KVM switch) rather than the console port. In that case, my G15 is fully operational, it just takes a couple of seconds to get recognized by the OS after each switch in that case.

The cable that come with it are color coded, which is a nice touch, helps when you have a mess of cables around.

I bought this and so far have used it with Windows XP, Linux (CentOS), and OS X (10.4) machines. Its been plug and play on all machines, works perfectly so far in the week Ive had it, set up is a breeze. Its a nice looking item, and comes with 4 nice, color coded VGA+USB+Audio cables, good cable length, everything good on that end.

Basically it would be a 5 star item if not for 2 things:

1) The physical shape-- Some reviewers noted the large footprint. My thoughts are that the largeness of the footprint isnt the issue, its the particular shape. Wide and not deep. Its too large to be spacesaving, and too small (not deep enough) to comfortably place a monitor on top. Its a tweener, and therefore awkward and less useful than it could otherwise be. Even bigger of an issue is that the front of the unit angles a bit upward, making it not a flat device, and therefore stacking something on top is difficult.

2) BRIGHT BLINKING LEDs-- The LEDs on the front of the unit are bright. When they are solid, its not that bad, but when you have a port selected that doesnt have a powered on computer attached, the LED blinks. So every time all computers are off, there goes the blinking. There is no power off switch on the unit in order to stop it without dealing with plugs, or turning off a surge protecter. Its incredibly distracting, and believe me, if this thing is in your bedroom, youre going to need to do something about it. Even in my living room, it irritates me when Im trying to watch TV and theres a BRIGHT BLINKING LED over there to the right. I contacted Belkin support via email. They got back to me within 1 business day and said sorry, its part of the functionality (to alert you that there is no active device on that port). I put in a feature request to be able to toggle that "functionality" off in future firmware releases, who knows if that will ever happen.

I'm not a computer geek so take this as a review from a typical user. I bought this unit to replace a 2-port Avocent because 1) I needed four ports and 2) the "select" buttons on the Avocent did not work reliably (keep pressing the button and maybe it will switch after 10 presses).

The Belkin is well built and does what it is supposed to. I have three PCs (two XPs and one Vista) hooked up to it. I haven't hooked the Mac up yet so I don't know how well it will do with a Mac in the mix. I also haven't used on-screen (keyboard) controls yet, so I can't vouch for that feature.

The unit is larger than most of the others I considered, but that's been a plus so far since the buttons have a very solid feel and I've never had to press a button more than once (good lord, that was aggrevating on the Avocent). It's also nice to have a reasonably good-sized back panel for making/changing the connections.

I had planned to use this with an Adesso Tru Form Pro keyboard/touchpad combination. The keyboard and touchpad do not require any special drivers, they work fine when plugged directly into the computer. But they have only a single USB connection. This device seems to absolutely require a separate connection for the mouse and keyboard. When I plugged the single connection into either the mouse port or the keyboard port mouse clicks were translated into random keystrokes and keystrokes translated into random mouse clicks.

I also tried my old PS2 keyboard and mouse, each with a separate connection made through a PS2->USB adapter. No luck. They worked, sort of, but the keystrokes and mouse gestures were extremely slow to reach the computer.

I contacted Belkin technical support. They promise 24x7 web based chat support. I was unable to get anyone to respond that way. They promised one business day turnaround on email based support. It took 3 days to get an answer. That answer was "I understand that you are not able to use your high-end keyboard and mouse on the KVM that you have. Sorry to inform you that we do not recommend a high-end keyboard or mouse with the KVM switch. I request you to use a generic keyboad and a mouse. Should you have any further questions, please take a moment to review our Knowledge Base at [...]or let us know." Some help.

Additionally, even had the device worked, it was enormous. 13"w x 5 1/2" d x 1 3/4" h. I would have needed a monitor stand just to make room on my desk for this beast.

On the plus side, it was easy to use. The cables were color coded to assist in connecting the cable to the correct machine. It also offered big buttons for switching (too big, I think). It did offer the ability to separately switch the audio and microphone from the keyboard, video, and mouse.

Had it been smaller and actually worked, I would have kept it. As is, I returned it. 5 stars for Amazon's return process. They made it very easy.